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 Commercial Vehicle The State Mercedes S350 The Department of Transport earlier this month issued a circular (Circular Letter MT 4 2010) on the rules and regulations regarding motor tax for commercial vehicles, following an increase in the number of vehicles switching from private motor tax classes to commercial vehicle classes.
Owners of vehicles currently taxed for commercial purposes face no additional requirements regarding forms or declarations other than they did in the past.
The Form RF111A Goods Declaration, which requires applicants to make a promise that the vehicle will only be used for commercial purposes, has always been a requirement when first taxing a small commercial vehicle. One small change has been made to Form RF 111A , which now requires an applicant who is applying for a vehicle to be taxed at the goods rate to provide a Revenue registration identity number. This is to help ensure that the appropriate rate of tax is paid.
There is nothing whatsoever new about owners of commercial vehicles being required to confirm that they are not using them for private purposes, so recent attacks on poor misunderstood Johnny Gormley are for the most part without foundation.
The fuss is being generated by headline grabbing politico’s who as we get neared to a general election, behave like drowning men snatching at small straws.
This Goods Declaration updating has raised concerns among farmers, small businesses and the motor industry, and prompted calls for clarification and flexibility on the use of commercial vehicles. It is ludicrous and wasteful of resources to suggest that a small business owner, farmer or tradesman would be unable to use a commercially taxed vehicle for minor personal use over the course of his day’s work and any attempt to enforce same would be totally farcical.
However there is one piece of legislation which we the Irish Taxpayer would like Johnny Gormley to change.
Please ensure that current commercial vehicle custom and practice is rigorously applied to the Government Mercedes. Currently all elected representatives who are given a State car, should, on receipt of same, sign an agreement to the following effect:-
1. I agree never to abuse the generosity of the hardworking plebes whose daily sweat pays for my State car and I will use local Taxis, Bicycle, Dart and Train where same is more practicable.
2. I agree to only use the State car for official business and never for my constituency duties including attending Funerals, Charity Fund Raising events, Soccer, Rugby or GAA matches, official openings of Public Houses and Book Launches.
3. I agree to never instruct my police driver to take an empty State Car to pick me up at a Summer School or to drive ahead to meet me at the next airport to which I propose to fly.
4. I agree not to use the State car for the transport or collection of clothing at the Dry cleaners, Fish and Chips, conveyance of Family Pets and Family Members on School Runs, Sleep Overs, Trips to Airports and the Sea Side, not to mention Family Shopping Expeditions.
5. I fully understand that in total this ministerial fleet costs about €7 million a year to maintain, in terms of drivers’ salaries, expenses, and of course necessary car maintenance and all paid for by my duped electorate.
 Part of the beautiful Lough Derg shore line viewed from Co.Tipperary Branches of the Shannon Protection Alliance in Nenagh, Co Tipperary and Athlone Co. Westmeath have welcomed the setting up of a further lobby group in Limerick, which oppose the plan to extract millions of litres of water from Lough Derg’s shoreline in Co.Tipperary. This new opposition comes as a result of Dublin City Council unveiling plans to extract 500 million litres of water from Lough Derg to supply the greater Dublin region.
This controversial plan would envisage water being extracted at a rate of 500 million litres per day from an extraction point, possibly to be constructed at Terryglass, a village situated in North Tipperary.
Dublin City Council plans to pipe this water to Garryhinch Bog in Co. Offaly, where it intends to design “an innovative water based eco-park with fishing, boating, cycling, water and leisure sports on 500 acres, with a major water storage reservoir.”
The council expect that the water stored at this reservoir will not only be a new water source for the greater Dublin area, but will also supply counties Westmeath, Offaly, Meath, Wicklow and Kildare.
The project is set to cost €540m and will create an estimated 1,000 construction jobs over three years as well as generating ongoing, sustainable, long-term jobs in the Midlands in the management of the eco-park activities and a water plant.
Originally the plan was to extract the water from Lough Ree, but following massive public pressure from local communities in Athlone and despite the fact that the distance between Athlone and Dublin is shorter than that between Lough Derg and our capital city the vision has now changed, with Lough Derg becoming the favoured target for this extraction point.
Opposition to Dublin City Council’s vision for North Tipperary has been relatively muted, when compared to the military precision of organised opposition mounted from the Lough Ree area, where groups marched on our Dail last year demonstrating strong resistance to taking water from their local pond.
Continue reading Lough Derg To Supply Dublin’s Water ?
 Ireland's Mid West Region A significant investment boost for the Mid West Region comes on foot of a decision by the European Commission to allow grant aid to help boost employment. Such aid had been phased out two years ago.
This revised European Commission decision on Regional Investment rules could help create employment opportunities in the mid-western region.
The recent decision means that a large company locating to the mid-western region, which covers Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary, will now be able to get grant aid of up to ten per cent of the value of their intended investment, and thus help enterprise agencies to create and attract jobs in the area.
Certainly Grant aid acts as a strong incentive when companies are thinking about locating to an area and this together with language, education, low corporation tax rates, skills, physical and digital infrastructure, does determine a firms investment decisions, when they sit to consider and compare rival locations.
Property Options To Interested Companies In Thurles
Tipperary Technology Park is a fully serviced park with a Business Incubation Centre and quality manufacturing and office accommodation options. Thurles is readily accessible by road, rail and air. It is located on the main Dublin – Cork railway line and just 6km from the main Dublin – Cork motorway. Shannon International Airport has daily direct flights to the US, UK and Europe. International companies in Thurles and the surrounding area include Taro Pharmaceuticals and Procter & Gamble. The town is also well served with a robust broadband telecoms network where a choice of carriers ensure competitive prices and high quality service for all users. Thurles is home to two 3rd level colleges, St Patricks College and the Tipperary Institute, latter a college with an enrolment of over 700 students, with two of the Institutes departments being Business Development and Information / Communications Technologies.
For further information please contact: Brian Keating, Development Manager
Address:Tipperary Technology Park, Thurles, Co Tipperary, Ireland
Tel.: +353 (0) 504 29300 Fax.: +353 (0) 504 29305.
The decision to restore regional aid to the whole mid-west region goes beyond the recommendation in the Report of the Mid-Western Task force which sought aid for a number of business parks in the region.
This decision now puts the much neglected mid-western region in the same position as the south-eastern region, which covers Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford and South Tipperary, where State aid for large investment projects is already allowed.
 Taoiseach Brian Cowen has stated, with not so much as a blush, that the Government’s revised €39bn Capital Investment Programme will lead to 270,000 jobs being provided between now and 2016. However, overall spending on infrastructure is being cut by up to 40%, when compared to the 2007 National Development Plan.
Announcing his plan, the Taoiseach confirmed that Metro North and the €2.5bn Dart Underground will go ahead in Dublin.
Nice one Dublin, and whilst we accept that investment of this kind is welcome, using current estimates, we must keep in mind that it costs €200,000 to construct a simple bus stop.
We continue to over developed and over balance our east coast, while neglecting most of the rest of Ireland. It seems that despite the country being in ruins, Dublin must continue to be nurtured, and rural Ireland must “Eat the crumbs which fall from the masters table“, (Matthew 15:27). In rural parts of Ireland you can damaging your car by taking a short drive on our roads, but we are told there is no money to repair them. In Dublin there is a Railway service, there is the Luas, there is a Bus service, there are Taxi’s, but now they require an Underground as well. Dublin does not need an Underground, Thurles does need a ring road, but it would appear that Fianna Fail are borrowing to buy the next election and the gullible Irish electorate will fall for it again, if there are three successive declines in the unemployment figures in late 2011 and early 2012.
There will, we are informed, be more capital investment in Water Services which really means “lets get those water metres in place, and get our €350 minimum from every household, in water charges, to prop up the City of Dublin, County and Local Councils“. This whole plan fails to realise that people can only spend money if they have it. Soon 80% of all incomes will disappear in stealth taxes before each taxpayer is allowed to pay the “candle maker” and the “shoe maker”.
Continue reading Infrastructure Investment – And The Award Goes To Dublin
Dublin! Dublin! Dublin! everything appears these days to be centred in and around Dublin. A plague on our Capital city say the dwellers from “Beyond the Pale.”
It now appears that this city formally known as “The Pale” is being promoted as a place for “Fun and Craic” in a new solo run using €1 million of our Tourism campaign funding.
 "The Pale" The word “pale ” (An Pháil) derives ultimately from the Latin word palus, meaning a stake, used to support a fence and from this came the figurative meaning of boundary and eventually the phrase “beyond the pale” as something outside the boundary of an area from Dundalk to Carrickmines Castle, Dublin known today as gullible “Rural Ireland.”
Minister for Tourism Mary Hanafin TD said that this new radio and online campaign by Tourism Ireland would be seen by an audience of over 12 million, British tourists. She correctly states that Britain is the largest single source market for visitors to the island of Ireland and provides more than half of all visitors to the island. This campaign will involve direct marketing and social media initiatives, as well as promotions with tour operators and air and sea carriers. It will capitalises on the British market and intensively promote Dublin to the British holidaymaker.
Frank Magee of Dublin Tourism states: “The capital city attracted 1.5 million visitors from Britain last year, which resulted in five million bed nights, but losing its market share in Britain. Dublin has been the driver in Irish tourism, bolstering the Irish figures in recent years and there’s a realisation that if Dublin doesn’t do well, Ireland doesn’t do well.”
What a load of verbal diarrhea Mr Magee. Ireland’s false reputation of being an expensive holiday destination is spread by Tourists who spend too much time in Dublin drinking €3.50 cups of coffee served by staff who do not speak English .
Come on down to Tipperary folks if you want a holiday offering value for your money. Thurles is the ancestral home of your head of state, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and it is here you can experience friendly relaxation, carefree fun and craic, your children can run wild and run free, the air is clean and you can find your car still parked where you left it the night before.
It would appear rural Irish taxpayers, for far to long, have been the silent and subservient suppliers of ‘money on demand’ to support Dublin tourism, so let us keep things in perspective remembering that in 2009 the Irish Hotels Federation represented almost 1,000 hotels and guesthouses throughout the whole country, which in turn employ over 59,000 people. It seems only proper that those beyond the Pale should like their fair slice of the tourism promotion cake.
How Much Money Was Spent Promoting Our Capital City Dublin In The Past Ten Or So Years?
€5m for “The Monument of Light” or “Spire Of Light” erected in O’Connell Street, better known by the names: ‘The Spike’, ‘The Stiletto in the Ghetto’, ‘The Erection at the Intersection’, ‘The Poker next to Croker’ and ‘The Stiffy in the Liffey’. At the time of its erection on O’Connell Street in 2003, the Spire Of Light was described as “self-cleaning”, but Dublin’s city council now concede that its maintenance cost €205,000 last year and will increase to at least €218,000 this year, and thats before they pick up a discarded chip bag.
Continue reading Dublin – A Plague On Your City Says Rural Ireland
The first occurrence of fluoridated drinking water was found in Germany’s Nazi prison camps during World War 11. The Gestapo had little concern about fluoride’s supposed effect on children’s teeth; one of their alleged reason, according to some scientists, for this mass-medicating of water with sodium fluoride, was to force the prisoners in their concentration camps into a quiet, calm submission.
I now believe that there is too much sodium fluoride in Ireland’s drinking water and I base my belief on the following two reported incidents which leave me very, very confused indeed.
Incident (A) – In 2009 a former treasurer of a GAA club west of Thurles was sentenced to 12 months in prison after stealing almost €100,000 of club funds. The mother of one, when reported to the Gardai, publicly admitted to multiple charges of forging cheques to the value of almost €35,000 and stealing almost €64,000 from the clubs weekly lottery. To correct her mistake, the 49-year-old raised approximately €59,000 from the sale of a house she was due to inherit from her mother.
Imposing a twelve month sentence, Judge Carroll Moran said the offence “goes to the very heart of the proper running of a social club in the community, and the gravity of the offence must be reflected in the sentence passed.”
Note: No confusion here, proper order, well done Judge Carroll Moran.
 Senator Ivor Callely Incident (B) - Earlier this week, a Seanad committee on members’ interests found that Senator Ivor Callely, who is/was according to himself, Chairman of the Oireachtas Human Rights Committee, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Head of the Irish Delegation to the Organisation for Security and Co operation in Europe, a Member and Spokesperson on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, had intentionally committed an act of “a serious and grave nature” by claiming travel expenses from west Cork rather than his home in Clontarf, Co Dublin, thus defrauding the Irish tax payer of some €80,000.
Continue reading Ivor Callely – Is There Something In Our Water
 Enda Kenny Fine Gael Leader, Enda Kenny, has questioned the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, regarding the number of applications being processed and the length of time being taken for such processing, by the Garda Central Vetting Unit.
In 2009, the Garda Vetting Unit, which is based here in Thurles, dealt with some 246,194 applications, however at present it is taking between 10 to 12 weeks to process current applications.
Garda vetting, for the Youth Work Sector, was formally introduced in September 2006, following protracted negotiations and a campaign seeking such vetting for these organisations. The Garda Commissioner approved a policy whereby An Garda Siochana should conduct Garda vetting in respect of all persons, 16 years of age and over, who had substantial and unsupervised access to children and vulnerable adults.
Deputy Kenny stated:
“The waiting period of 10 to 12 weeks is having an impact on many constituents throughout the country, where they may urgently require their application to be approved in a more timely fashion. A significant number of parents are quite concerned that many Summer Camps this year, who cover a wide variety of interests, are being operated without personnel having been suitably vetted before gaining access to children. This is now an area that requires immediate priority, in the interests of children’s welfare.”
While walking down a rural road one day, a well known Tipperary Teachta Dála figure is tragically trampled under foot, during a domestic stag hunt and gets killed. His soul gently soars up to ‘Heaven’ and is met by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.
‘Sir ,welcome to heaven,’ says St. Peter. ‘ Now before you settle in, it seems there is a slight problem. We seldom see such a high profile official such as yourself around these parts and to be honest we’re not quite sure what to do with you.‘
‘No problem, just let me in and inform God I have arrived,’ says the Tipp TD.
‘Well, I’d like to, but I have orders from God already. He suggests that perhaps you should spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where you would like to live for all eternity.‘
‘I’ve already made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,‘ says the TD.
‘I’m sorry Sir, but we have our rules.‘ And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator marked ‘Hell’ and he goes down, down, down to Hell.
When the doors open our TD finds himself in the middle of a rich, green race course. In the distance is the Galway Tent and standing in front of it are all his old deceased friends. There are Bankers, Developers, Gamblers, Members of the Horsey Fraternity, County and Urban District Councillors and other politicians who previously had dealings with him.
 Everyone is in splendid evening dress. They rush to greet him, shake his hand, and begin to reminisce about the good times, when brown envelopes were a daily ritual, and un-vouched expenses were the order of the day, courtesy of stupid gullible tax payers. Chauffeur driven Mercedes take them to play a leisurely game of golf and then they later dine on lobster, caviar and champagne at the clubhouse. Also present in their midst is Lucifer himself, who appears to be a very friendly, quick witted fellow and who mixes well with all assembled. They are having such a good time that before our TD realizes it, his 24 hours is up and it is time to go.
Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves goodbye, while the elevator rises up, up, up and the door re-opens at the entrance to ‘Heaven’ where St. Peter sits behind reception waiting for him.
‘Now it’s time for your visit to ‘Heaven.’ said he.
So another 24 hours pass with our TD joining a group of very contented souls happily sailing about from cloud to cloud, playing their harps and singing. Our popular TD has a relaxed time here and before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.
‘Well, then, you’ve spent a day in ‘Hell’ and another in ‘Heaven’, now please choose where you would like best to be, for all eternity.’
Our TD reflects for a minute, then he answers: ‘Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think Hell would suit me best.‘
St. Peter escorts our TD to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to ‘Hell’.
When the doors of the elevator open he now finds himself in the middle of a dark barren landscape covered with waste and garbage.
All his old friends are present, but now dressed in smelly rags, picking up this trash and putting it in black bags, as more trash falls endlessly on top of them from above.
Lucifer comes over to comfort our TD and puts his arm around his shoulder.
‘I don’t understand,’ stammers our TD. ‘Yesterday I was here and there was a race course and a golf club, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there’s just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What has happened?’
The devil looks at him, smiles and whispered, ‘Yesterday we were campaigning …… But today you voted.‘
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